The Community Health Centers Fund expired Oct. 1. It accounts for 70% of all federal grants for community health centers. As America's largest primary-care network, CHCs are crucial for many of America's most medically underserved children and families, especially those living in rural areas.

Western New York is better off because of these health care workers, although where they came from, how they got here, and the work they do is not completely understood, said Dr. Roseanne Berger and other physicians in the region.